His step has slowed. Al Davis is 73, and the years are beginning to sit heavily on him. Walking is a trial. Those close to him say he is experiencing much pain.

The whispers, meantime, have begun. That there is little left for Davis. That his role with the Oakland Raiders has diminished. That he soon could step away from an NFL in which his voice, often questioning, has rung for almost a half-century.

Davis does not say this. Through the prelude to Sunday's Super Bowl XXXVII between his Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he has assumed a low profile. His only public appearance was at the Qualcomm Stadium ceremony in which a memorial statue to the late San Diego Union sports editor Jack Murphy was unveiled. Nor does Davis intend to assume a more public posture in the time remaining before the kickoff.

Bruce Allen, the Raiders' senior assistant, said Davis takes the position that this is a week when the focus should be on the team's players and coaches. Allen does not credit talk that Davis' stewardship of the Raiders is about to conclude.

"This is his life," Allen said.

As much as any man, Davis is responsible for there being an event known as the Super Bowl. The game had its beginning as a condition of the NFL-AFL merger of 1970. As the commissioner of the AFL, Davis, a master of guerrilla warfare, wrought the merger by trying to persuade, sometimes successfully, NFL quarterbacks to leave football's establishment and align with the AFL.

The principals in signing the merger agreement were Tex Schramm of the Dallas Cowboys and Lamar Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs, but it was Davis' actions that were at the source of their talks.

This Super Bowl could represent Davis' crowning achievement: to win it with Bill Callahan, a coach who was little known when Davis tapped him as Jon Gruden's replacement. Or it could be the most distressing of events for Davis: to lose it to Gruden, whom Davis permitted to move on to Tampa Bay after the 2001 season when the Bucs offered him two first-and two second-round draft selections, plus $8 million, for title to the coach.

Callahan yesterday answered in a word when asked if he was aware of any indications that Davis could be walking away from football. The word was "No."

Yet there is the matter of Davis' health. He is said to be suffering from edema, a condition in which the body tissues contain an excessive amount of fluid. Swelling of the joints results.

When the Raiders arrived here this week, Davis had to be helped down the plane's ramp. At the Murphy function, his movement was labored.

After the Raiders outscored the Tennessee Titans in last week's AFC Championship Game, Davis did not present himself on the field. In his current condition, he could not get there swiftly enough.

Those regularly around the Raiders say Davis shows up at practice only about once a week. On the club, Allen is understood to be making the football decisions. Everything else is decided by Amy Trask, the team's chief executive.

This has been a distressing season for Davis, who has an acute awareness of death, which he once confirmed in an article published in Sports Illustrated. Lawsuits, and he has been involved in many, and the acrimony they inspired, Davis could deal with. Against death, he was powerless.

This season three former Raiders, Dave Dalby (with whom Davis was particularly close), Neal Colzie and Duane Osteen, have died. Sid Gillman, who introduced Davis into professional football when he retained him as an assistant coach of the Chargers in 1960, died earlier this month. Irv Kaze, a member of the AFL staff Davis cobbled together as the league's commissioner, died. Will McDonough, a Boston sports reporter for whom Davis had profound respect, died.

"He has death all around him," said the source, "and he doesn't respond well to it."

Additionally, Jim Otto, a former Raider who through the years has been at Davis' side, is confined to a wheelchair.

The Raiders' financial situation is not a strong one in Oakland, not the most affluent of communities. As many as 40 to 50 suites in the 63,132-seat capacity Network Associates Coliseum sit empty. Several games this season were blacked out on local television because they were not sellouts.

Davis is contending in a lawsuit that Oakland community leaders have failed to fulfill a pledge made to him when he returned the team there from Los Angeles in 1995: that he would have guaranteed sellouts.

He also has sued the NFL, alleging the league acted to torpedo his plans to locate the team to a proposed stadium at Hollywood Park in Inglewood when the Raiders were playing at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. A jury found the NFL blameless, but the judgment was thrown out because of the misconduct of some jurors.

Davis further contended that Los Angeles as an NFL market is his, he having in effect paid for it. As a condition of the Raiders being permitted to move from Oakland in 1982 despite the NFL's objections, a judge ruled Davis had to compensate for Los Angeles being unable to serve as the site of an expansion team. The offset ran into the millions. Having paid it, Davis' position is that the Los Angeles market is his.

Davis is thought to control only about 18 percent of the stock in the Raiders, but as the club's managing general partner, he has all the voting stock. The team he has made in his image is valued at from $750 million (should it be operating in Los Angeles) to $500 million (with an Oakland base). Davis is financially secure. In view of his health concerns, he could be considering leaving football, but as Allen noted, the game consumes him. Winning consumes him.

At the Murphy event, somebody mentioned to him that the Raiders are the favorites Sunday. Davis bridled. "I don't care about that, I just want to win," he said.

Winning XXXVII would represent a fourth Super Bowl triumph for the only NFL franchise steward who has coached in the professional game. He handled the passing game for Gillman in his time with the Chargers. After Davis left to become the head coach of the Raiders in 1963, Gillman attended personally to the passing game.

As the head coach of the Raiders, Davis took a team that had been 8-33 before his arrival and transformed it into a force with his personality and his understanding of offense. As much as anything else, he imbued those Raiders with pride.

"We're the Raiders of Oakland," he would say.

The three Raiders teams he coached went 23-16-3.

In confirming that Davis has no plans to make himself available to the media before Sunday, Raiders publicist Mike Davis said this:

"Al Davis is No. 1 all-time in team achievement, personal achievement and in his contributions to the game. Add them up and he's No. 1."

But he isn't going to have any public visibility here this week. In this regard, Allen said he received a call from a representative of MSNBC.

"He said the network would be doing an interview with Davis at 9 a.m. on Tuesday and that in order not to inconvenience Davis, it would do it at the team's hotel. Can you confirm that?"

Allen said he asked his caller where he was calling from. "New York," was the answer. Allen said he suggested the caller return his airline tickets.

"You've got as little chance of doing that as winning the Lotto," Allen said.